One of the best coaches of the past two decades finally received another chance. Bruce Boudreau was hired by the Canucks and promptly won his first game 4-0. Thatcher Demko had a 31 save shutout and looks to be the biggest beneficiary of the coaching change. Boudreau has always had a great defensive system that inflated the numbers of his goaltenders. Dubnyk was never that good of a goalie, but he was great in fantasy. Same goes with the Washington guys earlier, or the other Wild goaltenders. Demko has the chance to be a bottom end #1 now. I'd also expect the stars on the Canucks to start turning things around. I still think the roster is incredibly flawed, but this is a huge win for the Canucks in real life and for us in fantasy. Let's take a look at what else happened over the last two nights:
The hype surrounding Kirill Kaprizov was building for a few years before he came to the NHL. Even with the lofty expectations on his shoulders, he's played at a level higher than anyone expected. On Friday, Kaprizov scored a hat trick on eight shots with two PIM and a +4 rating. He followed that up with another eight shots on Sunday, adding an assist and two penalty minutes. I wrote about a month ago that I expected Kaprizov's shot rate to take a big jump as the season progressed based on his shooting totals in the KHL. Well, sixteen shots in the past two games brings him over 2.5 per game, an average rate for a forward. Add in being just under a point per game and we can basically call the Calder race now. I'm not convinced that it's going to get better in the future as Kaprizov will be 24 by the time the regular season ends, but either way, he should establish himself around a 30+40 pace in a normal season with slight upside on both of those numbers. Kaprizov is definitely a top 50 dynasty asset, but I don't think he pushes the top 25 long term because the penalty minutes will be low and more importantly, I don't think he gets to be a 3.5-4 shot per game guy because he's too good of a playmaker for that. Either way, if you're lucky enough to have him, enjoy it because there's nothing fluky about his performance. Let's take a look at what else happened over the weekend:
Mark Stone has had a pretty good season by his standards, albeit not as great as I had hoped. Perhaps that'll change now that he had his best game of the season. Stone went off on Thursday scoring two goals and three assists while adding five shots on goal and two PIM. That brings him up to 20+33 in 56 games while being +10 and well over 2.5 shots per game. Stone used to be a two shot per game player, but it has taken a big jump since last season, and especially when he went to Vegas. He should be a clear top 50 player going forward, and I think there's a good chance he ends up topping 80 points for the first time in his career. Let's take a look at what else happened over the last two nights:
Hey guys! Sven here with a look at the New York Islanders for 31 in 31! Over the next month, I will be taking a look at each team’s players to watch out for going into the 2018-19 fantasy hockey season: The 31 in 31 daily segment. This analysis features everything from surefire studs, to sleepers, to prospects that may make an appearance at some point this season. Please let me know if you guys enjoy this type of material! Reminder that the stat totals are from last season.
For the first time in 23 seasons, the New York Islanders won a playoff series, building momentum in their first year in Brooklyn. Free agency was not kind to the Islanders as they lost two of their best players from the past few seasons, Kyle Okposo and Frans Nielsen. In comes Andrew Ladd to play on the first line and the expectation is that their young trio of first round picks take the next step (or first step) in their games to fill the void. There's more pressure on the team to succeed than there has been in decades so let's take a look at how the team is shaping up.
